Weyburn Minor Football received a major boost of support on Monday, as the Calgary-based pipeline company Kingston Midstream donated $35,000 through the company’s Richardson Foundation.
The foundation was set up by the company’s owners, the Richardson family, who sets aside a portion of their earnings for the foundation, and take in applications from organizations and community groups for funding.
The funds will be used by Weyburn Minor Football to finish off their new tower building at the WMF Field, which will house a concession on the ground floor, and the announcers’ booth, TV and media booths on the upper floor.
There will also be a large storage area on the ground floor, which will be used for the storage of Minor Football’s equipment, currently housed in a storage building at Jubilee Park, said Jody Kerr, president of Weyburn Minor Football.
“It’s been 10 years of fundraising to get this field up and running,” he said, noting the field has been in place now for about three years.
It has the distinction of being the only football field in Weyburn with lights for evening games, with the light poles coming from Leibel Field in Regina after they did an upgrade to their facility.
Minor Football has all of the supplies in place to finish off the building, and now they are just awaiting the use of a lift. They will be installing the windows, siding and roofing on the exterior, finishing the interior, and running electricity to the building, said Kerr.
He noted that currently around 120 families are involved in Minor Football, which has teams for those in Grade 8 and under.
Registration will open online in June, said Kerr, but for now it will be non-payment registration until the organization knows whether a season is possible this fall.
The decision for that lies with the province’s Chief Medical Health Officer, and with the governing bodies for minor football in Saskatchewan and Canada, and they will have to give the green light if a season will be possible this year or not, said Kerr.
If the season does proceed, it will get underway in the first week of September, and plans are to have a Minor Football Day when all of the teams will play, and sponsors like Kingston Midstream will be invited to come and be publicly recognized by the families at the field.
Once the building is completed, the next goal for Minor Football is to fundraise for a new score clock, said Kerr. Currently they use a portable score clock that is provided by the Weyburn Comprehensive School for the Comp Eagles football games.
